Troupe Hasn't Lost A Step

Pbs Turns Its Cameras On Ailey Dance Company, In All Its Glory.

June 19, 2006|By Guillermo Perez Special Correspondent

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater comes closest to the stature of a truly national dance company. Featured in a Wednesday PBS broadcast of Great Performances, the company celebrates its holding power as it nears a half century of vibrant and varied dancing.

Produced and directed by experienced documentarist Phil Bertelsen, Dance in America: Beyond the Steps: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater focuses on last year's performances at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Russia, and on the move to palatial new digs in Manhattan. The company's old headquarters were worn well beyond the edges, and the new space is the largest dance studio space in the country.

The staging of Love Stories on the Russian tour (also seen at the Broward Center during the company's April visit) brings tantalizing choreographic segments in rehearsal and in peformance, along with reflections by its creators and dancers. That piece delves into hip-hop and contemporary theatricality, exemplifying the company's ongoing explorations.

Current Ailey artistic director Judith Jamison shares choreography credits for Love Stories with Rennie Harris and Miami's own Robert Battle. She provides the longest and most valuable views as guardian of such Ailey classics as her signature Cry. Jamison has managed to pass on that and other roles, once her intimate possession. She nails down the importance of projection for the Ailey mystique: "I'm always telling dancers that you're not defined by the end of your fingertips, or the top of your head, or the bottom of your feet. ... You are the infinity." Associate artistic director Masazumi Chaya, a receptacle of company memory, adds heart to that exaltation of personality. But the dancers themselves give this new generation its intimacy.

While most comments recall the fizz of gala-night champagne, nothing here sounds hyped. If anything, the reflections don't quite embrace the whole breadth -- in both longevity and likability -- of the company's accomplishment. More glimpses into the Ailey repertory and of necessary contemporary additions would have added perspective (Elisa Monte's Treading, also seen locally, deserved a few more seconds).

True, it's sometimes too easy to fall head over heels for the Ailey, with its pop come-ons, as it sells quick thrills always looking gorgeous. Note that this program kicks off with gotcha moments of shaking shoulders, undulating hips, and wow-did-ya-see-that! leaps. But the documentary makes no bones about such populist leanings. "Alvin was a person of the people," Jamison reminds us, as if part of a toast. And, from the Ailey in its glory, the winsomely pretty can also be pretty awesome. Its pulse speeding to Love Stories, this show delivers a valentine that's a keeper.

Guillermo Perez is a Miami-based freelancer and critic for Dance Magazine.